An innovative class of devices known as personal video recorders, or PVRs, has emerged recently. PVRs utilize digitized video as a means to conveniently manipulate the video data by way of its hardware and software. The hardware often comprises a storage device such as a hard drive. PVRs allow a user to employ one or more indexing techniques or trick modes that include time shifting, pausing and fast forwarding video to provide a more desirable viewing experience for the user. In as much as they are a convenient tool for the user, there are a number of disadvantages to using PVRs that relate to the way video is currently indexed.
One drawback of existing PVRs relates to its inability to securely store the scrambled video when personal video recording functions are performed. Video is often scrambled by a publisher of video material in order to prevent unauthorized access. For any scrambled video, current PVR methods require an unscrambling of the entire video in order to extract frame indexing information. As a consequence, the unscrambled video becomes vulnerable to unauthorized piracy.
Another drawback of today's PVRs relate to the inefficiencies related to obtaining indexing information of any scrambled video. The entire video must be descrambled using a variable length decoding engine in order to access frame indexing information. Unfortunately, this requires significant processing power and time. The drawback may significantly affect a user's ability to perform one or more trick modes within a reasonable amount of time. As a result, the benefits of PVR functionality is reduced.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.